A solid material, such as ceramics or metals, includes a portion where micro-regions with a disordered atomic arrangement continuously align in a line. This portion is referred to as “dislocation”). The dislocation is classified broadly into “edge dislocation” and “screw dislocation”. These dislocations are formed, for example, during the course of solidification of a molten material or in conjunction with plastic deformation of a solid material. If the density of dislocations in a material is increased, the material can have an enhanced strength.
A structure adapted to two-dimensionally confine electrons and allow only one-dimensional electron motion is known and described as a quantum wire. As one of the attempts to utilize a dislocation mechanism for the production of the quantum wire, there has been known a method intended to utilize an energy level to be formed along misfit dislocations generated in the hetero-phase interface between a single-crystal substrate and a single-crystal film which is placed on a limited surface region of the substrate and prepared to have a lattice constant different by about 0.2% to 5% relative to that of the substrate (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 05-218391). There has also been known a method intended to apply a stress to a quantum well so as to generate a dislocation phenomenon (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 11-026888).